Trump

WASHINGTON — Charges against the man accused of shooting two National Guard members have been upgraded to first-degree murder after one of the soldiers died, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia announced Friday.

Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, were hospitalized in critical condition after the Wednesday afternoon shooting near the White House. President Trump announced Thursday evening that Beckstrom had died.

U.S. Atty. Jeanine Pirro’s office said the charges against Rahmanullah Lakanwal, a 29-year-old Afghan national who worked with the CIA during the Afghanistan war, now include one count of first-degree murder, three counts of possession of a firearm during a crime of violence and two counts of assault with intent to kill while armed.

Beckstrom and Wolfe were deployed with the West Virginia National Guard as part of Trump’s mission in the nation’s capital that federalized the D.C. police force, which he says is a crime-fighting campaign. The president has deployed National Guard members to many Democratic-run cities, including Los Angeles, to assist with his mass deportation efforts.

Trump called the shooting a “terrorist attack” and criticized the Biden administration for allowing Afghans who worked with U.S. forces during the Afghanistan war to enter the U.S. The president has said he wants to “permanently pause migration” from poorer nations and expel millions of immigrants from the country.

In an interview on Fox News, Pirro said there are “many charges to come” beyond the upgraded murder charge. She said her heart goes out to the family of Beckstrom, who volunteered to serve and “ended up being shot ambush-style on the cold streets of Washington, D.C., by an individual who will now be charged with murder in the first degree.”

Pirro, a former Fox News host, declined to discuss the suspect’s motive, saying officials have been working around the clock on that question. Investigators are continuing to execute warrants in Washington state, where Lakanwal lived, and other parts of the country, she said.

Wolfe remains in “very critical condition,” West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey said Friday. He ordered flags to be flown at half-staff in recognition of Beckstrom’s death.

“These two West Virginia heroes were serving our country and protecting our nation’s capital when they were maliciously attacked,” Morrisey said. “Their courage and commitment to duty represent the very best of our state.”

Lakanwal entered the U.S. in 2021

Lakanwal entered the U.S. in 2021 through Operation Allies Welcome, a Biden administration program that evacuated and resettled tens of thousands of Afghans after the U.S. withdrawal from the country, officials said.

Lakanwal applied for asylum during the Biden administration, but his asylum was approved under the Trump administration, #AfghanEvac said in a statement. #AfghanEvac is a nonprofit organization that has worked with the U.S. government to resettle more than 195,000 Afghan evacuees, according to its website.

Lakanwal has been living in Bellingham, Wash., about 80 miles north of Seattle, with his wife and five children, said his former landlord, Kristina Widman.

Mohammad Sherzad, a neighbor of Lakanwal’s in Bellingham, told the Associated Press in a phone interview Friday that Lakanwal was polite, quiet and spoke very little English.

Sherzad said he attended the same mosque as Lakanwal and had heard from other members that Lakanwal was struggling to find work. Some of his children attended the same school as Lakanwal’s children, Sherzad said.

“He was so quiet and the kids were so polite, they were so playful. But we didn’t see anything bad about him. He was looking OK,” Sherzad said. Sherzad said Lakanwal “disappeared” about two weeks ago.

In his address to the troops Thursday, Trump said that Lakanwal “went cuckoo. I mean, he went nuts.”

People who knew Lakanwal say he served in a CIA-backed Afghan army unit before immigrating to the United States. Lakanwal worked in one of the special Zero Units in the southern province of Kandahar, according to a resident of the eastern Afghan province of Khost who identified himself as Lakanwal’s cousin. He said Lakanwal was originally from the province and his brother had worked in the unit as well.

The cousin spoke to AP on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. He said Lakanwal had started out working as a security guard for the unit in 2012 and was later promoted to a team leader and a GPS specialist. A former official from the unit, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation, said Lakanwal’s brother was a platoon leader.

Zero Units were paramilitary units manned by Afghans and backed by the CIA that also served in front-line fighting with CIA paramilitary officers. Activists had attributed abuses to the units. They played a key role in the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from the country in 2021, providing security around Kabul International Airport as the Americans and Afghan evacuees withdrew from the country.

Beckstrom is remembered

Beckstrom enlisted in 2023, the same year she graduated high school, and served with distinction as a military police officer with the 863rd Military Police Company, the West Virginia National Guard said in a statement.

“She exemplified leadership, dedication, and professionalism,” the statement said, adding that Beckstrom “volunteered to serve as part of Operation D.C. Safe and Beautiful, helping to ensure the safety and security of our nation’s capital.”

The president called Beckstrom an “incredible person, outstanding in every single way.”

On Wednesday night, Trump called for the reinvestigation of all Afghan refugees who had entered under the Biden administration initiative that brought roughly 76,000 people to the country, many of whom had worked as interpreters and translators.

The program has faced intense scrutiny from Trump and others over allegations of gaps in the vetting process, even as advocates say there was extensive vetting and the program offered a lifeline to people at risk of Taliban reprisals.

The director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Joseph Edlow said in a statement that the agency would take additional steps to screen people from 19 “high-risk” countries “to the maximum degree possible.”

Edlow didn’t name the countries. But in June, the administration banned travel to the U.S. by citizens of 12 countries and restricted access from seven others, citing national security concerns.

Binkley and Finley write for the Associated Press. AP journalists Sarah Brumfield, Siddiqullah Alizai, Elena Becatoros and Randy Herschaft contributed to this report.

United States President Donald Trump has sharply escalated his crackdown on immigration with an announcement of a “permanent pause” on migration from “all Third World Countries” late on Thursday.

The president’s remarks came a day after two National Guard members were shot – one of whom has since died from her injuries – in Washington, DC, on Wednesday. An Afghan national has been named as the primary suspect.

“I will permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries to allow the US system to fully recover, terminate all of the millions of Biden illegal admissions,” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform.

He did not specify what “third world” means and did not name any countries. But the phrase “third world” generally refers to Global South countries that are economically still developing or economically disadvantaged.

He also said “anyone who is not a net asset to the United States, or is incapable of loving our Country”, will be removed from the US.

Trump added that all federal benefits and subsidies to “noncitizens” will end, and he will “denaturalise migrants who undermine domestic tranquillity, and deport any foreign national who is a public charge, security risk, or non-compatible with Western civilisation”.

Earlier this year, Trump announced a ban on visas for citizens of 12 countries and restrictions for citizens of seven more. He has also introduced other restrictions on travel to the US throughout the year.

Here’s what we know.

What has the Trump administration said?

After Rahmanaullah Lakanwal, a 29-year-old Afghan national, was arrested and named as the suspect in the shooting of the National Guard members on Wednesday, Trump called the shooting “an act of terror”.

In an address to the media on Wednesday night, he said: “We must now re-examine every single alien who has entered our country from Afghanistan under Biden.”

Early on Thursday, US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced an indefinite immediate suspension “of all immigration requests relating to Afghan nationals”.

Effective immediately, processing of all immigration requests relating to Afghan nationals is stopped indefinitely pending further review of security and vetting protocols.

The protection and safety of our homeland and of the American people remains our singular focus and…

— USCIS (@USCIS) November 27, 2025

USCIS Director Joseph Edlow then added on X that, “at the direction” of the president, he had ordered “a full-scale, rigorous re-examination of every green card for every alien from every country of concern”.

“The protection of this country and of the American people remains paramount, and the American people will not bear the cost of the prior administration’s reckless resettlement policies,” Edlow said.

Edlow’s office told US media that the countries for which citizens with green cards will be reviewed would be those on the Trump administration’s June travel ban list.

In June, to “protect the United States from foreign terrorists and other National security and public safety threats”, the Trump administration announced that foreign nationals from 19 countries would face a full travel ban or partial restrictions.

Countries with a full ban in place are Afghanistan, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Myanmar, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. Those with a partial ban in place – some temporary visas are still allowed – are Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.

At the direction of @POTUS, I have directed a full scale, rigorous reexamination of every Green Card for every alien from every country of concern.

— USCIS Director Joseph B. Edlow (@USCISJoe) November 27, 2025

On Thursday night, Trump said on Truth Social he would introduce a “permanent pause” on immigration from all “Third World Countries”.

What does a ‘permanent pause’ in immigration mean?

It is unclear.

“In ordinary English, ‘permanent pause’ sounds final, but under immigration law, the term has no defined meaning,” Abhishek Saxena, a New Delhi-based advocate practising in the Supreme Court of India who also handles international immigration consultations, told Al Jazeera.

“Practically, ‘permanent pause’ typically means an open-ended restriction with no stated end date, but not a legally irreversible condition,” he added.

According to the US Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), the president may suspend the entry of immigrants for a fixed period, indefinitely or until the president modifies or lifts the proclamation. This can, however, be challenged. “If any indefinite pause is violating laws passed by US Congress, then such ban or pause can be challenged in a court,” said Saxena.

Roberto Forin, acting director of the Geneva-based Mixed Migration Centre (MMC), said the Trump administration’s vagueness over who these policies apply to and what he means by “permanently pause” or “Third World” is intentional.

“Keeping it undefined allows the administration to indiscriminately intimidate migrant communities in the US and around the world, while giving itself the prerogative to use this ban as another tool in its transactional approach to foreign policy,” Forin told Al Jazeera.

“I would expect the ban to disproportionately affect poorer countries, while sparing those that can offer something in exchange, such as natural resources or other strategic benefits,” he said.

“The objective of such announcements is to signal toughness, shift the narrative, instil fear and dehumanise migrants – regardless of the practical implementation and eventual legal outcomes,” he added.

How will people from such countries who are already living in the US be affected?

It is unclear how people from those countries will be affected until the names of the countries are listed and the immigration measure is implemented.

However, an August report by the Washington, DC-based American Immigration Council concluded that people from the 12 countries on Trump’s June 2025 full travel ban list will “not be able to see family members living abroad”.

“Under the June order, existing visas cannot be revoked, but those who need to leave the United States and renew their visas after they expire could be subjected to the ban instead of being allowed to return,” the report said.

Saxena said a restrictive immigration policy can indirectly affect people in the US in several other ways as well.

“Firstly, it will lead to increased scrutiny of pending applications. USCIS may subject applications from nationals of the affected countries to added background checks, longer security screening, or temporary holds,” he said.

“Secondly, history shows that when a country is placed under heightened security review, [visa] processing times frequently increase,” he noted.

“Lastly, although the government cannot revoke existing residency statuses arbitrarily, it may audit past immigration filings for fraud, misrepresentation, security concerns, or ineligibility under existing statutes,” he added.

Saxena said Trump’s announcement that he will pause immigration from “Third World Countries” would also likely prevent spouses, children, and parents who are abroad from entering the US until the proclamation is lifted.

“This creates long-distance separations, delays in family-based immigration petitions and interruption of family reunification programmes,” he said.

“However, people already inside the US cannot be separated from their families merely because a country is listed in a proclamation. Family-unity principles under the Constitution and the INA apply once a person is inside US territory,” he added.

What if you have a green card?

On Thursday, the Trump administration told journalists that it intends to re-examine all green cards held by people from the countries on the June 2025 travel ban list. However, it is not clear how the process will work or whether green cards could be revoked or even cancelled.

A green card is a US immigration document which allows an immigrant to permanently reside and work in the country.

US immigration judges have the power to revoke green cards and to deport people from the country if there are serious grounds, such as being found guilty of grievous crimes like murder or rape.

The government can also deport an immigrant on these grounds, including if they consider the person “a threat to public safety or if the person violates their visa”.

However, according to Saxena, the government “has no legal authority to revoke green cards without following due process. Any revocation must follow strict statutory procedures and satisfy due-process requirements.”

Last year, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency detained pro-Palestine activist Mahmoud Khalil on the “basis of his speech” while he was protesting against Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza at Columbia University. Khalil was a permanent US resident at the time, but ICE accused him of omitting information on his green card application.

In September, a US immigration judge ordered that Khalil should be deported to Algeria or Syria, but this has not yet happened.

What other steps has Trump taken this year to restrict immigration?

Besides green card re-examinations and announcing travel bans on citizens of some specific countries, Trump also froze refugee admissions shortly after he resumed office in January.

“The United States lacks the ability to absorb large numbers of migrants, and in particular, refugees, into its communities in a manner that does not compromise the availability of resources for Americans, that protects their safety and security, and that ensures the appropriate assimilation of refugees,” the White House said in a statement in January.

Then, at the end of October, the Trump administration announced the lowest refugee admission cap in the country’s history, limiting entry to just 7,500 people for the fiscal year 2026.

On November 25, according to a memo seen by the Reuters news agency, the Trump administration ordered a review of all refugees allowed into the country under the previous Joe Biden administration, and recommended that their permanent residency applications be paused.

According to the memo, which was reportedly signed by USCIS chief Eldow, the status and applications of about 233,000 refugees who entered the US between January 20, 2021 and February 20, 2025, would be reviewed. The memo cited Trump’s January order on freezing refugee admissions due to national security as a reason.

The US has also cut foreign aid for refugees in host countries.

The Trump administration has also targeted skilled migrant workers in an effort to protect US citizens’ jobs. In September, it increased the application fee for H-1B visas to $100,000 per application. The visa is used by companies in the US hiring overseas workers.

In October, the US Chamber of Commerce filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration for the visa application fee rise, claiming it could harm businesses. The case is pending in the Washington, DC district court.

What does this mean for refugees generally?

“Taken together, these measures, especially if they trigger a ‘race to the bottom’ among governments, could have devastating consequences globally, including in countries already ravaged by conflict and violence,” Forin said.

“We see this happening in Europe as well, from the system the UK has tried to establish to outsource asylum procedures to Rwanda, to the centres Italy tried to set up in Albania, and none of these have worked, because they were blocked by courts at every step.”

“Unfortunately, they have all contributed to the dehumanisation of refugees and migrants, depicting them simply as a threat or a burden, rather than as human beings in need of protection or deserving of a chance at a better future,” Forin added.

Published on 28/11/2025 – 17:03 GMT+1
•Updated
17:16

The EU member states agreed on Friday to cut tariffs on US imports as outlined in a controversial trade deal agreed last summer between the European Commission and the Trump administration to the detriment of European goods.

The move comes as US trade representatives urge EU capitals to fast-track the implementation of the deal which foresees the EU dropping tariffs to zero on most US industrial goods. A US delegation visited Brussels this week for talks.

The idea of adding a so-called “sunset clause” – a mechanism that would end the tariff concessions after a period of five years if the deal is not renewed – sparked a debate among EU countries but did not go ahead, signalling that member states do not want to antagonise Trump.

The EU-US trade agreement was concluded in July after months of tensions after US President Donald Trump imposed sweeping tariffs on partners worldwide in what he called “Liberation Day” for America. Under the deal, the EU will pay 15% tariffs on its exports to the US, while reducing its own tariffs on most US industrial products to zero.

No ‘sunset clause’ yet, but the Parliament could fight it

The deal has been widely criticised as a humiliation for Europe, although the Commission has defended it since arguing that it was the best possible outcome in the face of Trump’s aggressive trade stance. The alternative, Brussels argued, would have been worse.

Still, on Friday, the 27 backed the Commission’s much-maligned deal with a majority.

They also approved a clause allowing the Commission to suspend the deal if the US fails to implement it, as well as a safeguard mechanism enabling the Commission to temporarily halt the agreement if US imports surge and disrupt the European single market as a result of tariff concessions.

Member states also debated the introduction of a “sunset clause” that would permanently end the tariff reductions after five years if the deal is not renewed – an idea they expect the European Parliament to champion in upcoming talks.

Both institutions must agree on a common text by next spring to finalise the tariff cuts. According to an EU diplomat, most member states could accept adding the clause, but Germany opposes it as it fears retaliation.

The head of the Parliament’s trade committee, German MEP Bernd Lange (S&D), has already included the idea of a sunset clause in his report on the deal’s implementation which will serve as the basis for the European Parliament’s debate.

Inside the Commission, officials hope the Council and Parliament will refrain from unravelling the agreement negotiated with Washington on the basis that it could trigger another round of escalation and amplify a trade war.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — President Trump says he wants to “permanently pause migration” from poorer nations and is promising to seek to expel millions of immigrants from the United States by revoking their legal status.

Trump is blaming immigrants for problems from crime to housing shortages as part of what he calls “social dysfunction” in America and demanding “REVERSE MIGRATION.”

His most severe social media post against immigration since returning to the Oval Office in January came after the shooting Wednesday of two National Guard members who were patrolling the streets of the nation’s capital under his orders. One died and the other is in critical condition.

A 29-year-old Afghan national who worked with the CIA during the Afghanistan war is facing charges. The suspect came to the U.S. as part of a program after U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan to resettle those who had helped American troops.

Trump’s threat to stop immigration would be a serious blow to a nation that has long defined itself as welcoming immigrants.

Since Wednesday’s shooting near the White House, administration officials have pledged to reexamine millions of legal immigrants, building on a 10-month campaign to reduce the immigrant population. In a lengthy social media post late Thursday, the Republican president asserted that millions of people born outside the U.S. and now living in the country bore a large share of the blame for America’s societal ills.

“Only REVERSE MIGRATION can fully cure this situation,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform. “Other than that, HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL, except those that hate, steal, murder, and destroy everything that America stands for — You won’t be here for long!”

Trump was elected on a promise to crack down on illegal migration, and raids and deportations undertaken by his administration have disrupted communities across the country. Construction sites and schools have been frequent targets. The prospect of more deportations could be economically dangerous as America’s foreign-born workers account for nearly 31 million jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The president said on Truth Social that “most” foreign-born U.S. residents “are on welfare, from failed nations, or from prisons, mental institutions, gangs, or drug cartels” as he blamed them for crime across the country that is predominantly committed by U.S. citizens.

There are roughly 50 million foreign-born residents in the U.S., and multiple studies have found that immigrants are generally less likely to commit crimes than are people who were born in the country.

The perception that immigration breeds crime “continues to falter under the weight of the evidence,” according to a review of academic literature last year in the Annual Review of Criminology.

“With few exceptions, studies conducted at both the aggregate and individual levels demonstrate that high concentrations of immigrants are not associated with increased levels of crime and delinquency across neighborhoods and cities in the United States,” it said.

A study by economists initially released in 2023 found immigrants are 60% less likely to be incarcerated than people born in the U.S. Immigrants have been imprisoned at lower rates for 150 years, the study found, adding to past research undermining Trump’s claims.

Trump seemed to have little interest in a policy debate in his post, which the White House, on its own rapid response social media account, called “one of the most important messages ever released by President Trump.”

He pledged to “terminate” millions of admissions to the country made during the term of his predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden. He also wants to end federal benefits and subsidies for those who are not U.S. citizens, denaturalize people “who undermine domestic tranquility” and deport foreign nationals deemed “non-compatible with Western Civilization.”

Trump claimed immigrants from Somalia were “completely taking over the once great State of Minnesota” as he used a dated slur for intellectually disabled people to demean that state’s governor, Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee last year.

On Wednesday night, Trump called for the reinvestigation of all Afghan refugees who had entered under the Biden administration. On Thursday, the director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Joseph Edlow, said the agency would take additional steps to screen people from 19 “high-risk” countries “to the maximum degree possible.”

Edlow did not name the countries. But in June, the administration banned travel to the U.S. by citizens of 12 countries and restricted access from seven others, citing national security concerns.

The shooting of the two National Guard members appeared to trigger Trump’s anger over immigrants, yet he did not specifically refer to the event in his social media post.

The suspect, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, is accused of driving across the country to the District of Columbia and shooting two West Virginia National Guard members, Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24. Beckstrom died Thursday; Wolfe is in critical condition.

Lakanwal, currently in custody, was also shot and had wounds that were not believed to be life-threatening.

Trump was asked by a reporter Thursday if he blamed the shootings on all Afghans who came to the U.S.

“No, but we’ve had a lot of problems with Afghans,” the president said.

Boak writes for the Associated Press.

Ukraine has mounted a fierce defence of Pokrovsk for the fifth straight week since Russia’s concerted offensive began to take its eastern city, while at the same time it tries to finesse a Russian-inspired United States peace plan heavily criticised by US lawmakers.

The Russian Ministry of Defence said on Monday its “assault groups of the 2nd Army have completely liberated the Gornyak and Shakhtersky microdistricts in Pokrovsk.

On Tuesday, it said its forces were fighting in the Vostochny and Zapadny districts of Myrnohrad, to the east of Pokrovsk.

Both cities, in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, lie within an envelope which Russian forces have gradually tried to seal shut. Supplies and reinforcements can currently only reach Ukrainian forces from the west – and Russia claims to have effective fire control over those supply routes.

Ukrainian officials insisted the defence of Pokrovsk was still very much a contest. “Our positions are held in the centre of Pokrovsk, shooting battles continue, and the enemy fails to consolidate,” said Ukraine’s head of the Center for Countering Disinformation Andriy Kovalenko on Sunday, citing the 7th Air Assault Brigade fighting there.

Ukraine has evidently strained its resources to defend the Pokrovsk-Myrnohrad enclave, whereas the concentration of Russian offensive forces in Pokrovsk has not compromised their ability to assault elsewhere.

During November 20-27, Russia claimed to have seized Petropavlovka in Kharkiv, Novoselivka, Maslyakovka, Yampol, Stavki, Zvanovka, Petrovskoye, Ivanopolye and Vasyukovka in Donetsk, Tikhoye and Otradnoye in Dniperopetrovsk, and Novoye Zaporozhiye and Zatishye in Zaporizhia.

The Russian forces’ recent rate of advance has amounted to about half a dozen villages a week.

But Ukraine disputes some of Russia’s claims.

On November 20, Russian chief of staff Valery Gerasimov said his forces had seized the city of Kupiansk in Ukraine’s northern Kharkiv region, and were setting upon retreating Ukrainian units on the left bank of the Oskil River.

But Kovalenko replied on the Telegram messaging service: “Russia did NOT occupy Kupiansk. Gerasimov is just a liar,” and he repeated the claim a week later.

Ukraine has also had successes on the ground, according to its commander-in-chief, Oleksandr Syrskii. “Despite enemy pressure, the Defence Forces of Ukraine managed to carry out counteroffensive actions in the Dobropillia direction from the end of August to October this year,” he said, referring to a failed Russian flanking manoeuvre towards a town northwest of Pokrovsk.

“As a result, the units split the enemy’s offensive group and liberated over 430 square kilometres [166 square miles] north of Pokrovsk. Russian losses amounted to more than 13,000 killed and wounded.”

Russia also kept up pressure on Ukraine’s rear, launching 1,169 drones and 25 missiles at its cities during the week of November 20-26. Ukraine downed 85 percent of the drones and 14 of the missiles, but Zelenskyy called for more short- and medium-range defences.

Questionable diplomacy

Europe, Ukraine and members of the US Congress have all pushed back against a 28-point peace plan presented by the US administration of Donald Trump last week, describing it as too Russia-friendly.

In its original form, the plan granted key points that Russia has demanded. That included a promise from Ukraine never to join NATO and the surrendering of almost all the territory Russia has taken by force, along with the unoccupied remainder of Donetsk. The US and Ukraine’s other Western allies would have to recognise those annexations as legal.

Ukraine would have to hold an election within 100 days of the plan’s signature – one that Russia seems to believe would unseat Zelenskyy.

Russia has also demanded that Ukraine effectively disarm. The 28-point plan suggests reducing its armed forces by about a third, to 600,000 personnel.

“Right now is one of the hardest moments in our history,” Zelenskyy told the Ukrainian people after seeing the plan, describing it as a choice between “either the loss of our dignity or the risk of losing a key partner”.

The Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee Senator Roger Wicker said in a statement: “This so-called ‘peace plan’ has real problems, and I am highly skeptical it will achieve peace.”

Polish Premier Donald Tusk politely said on social media: “It would be good to know for sure who is the author of the plan and where was it created.”

The plan drew heavily from a Russian non-paper submitted to the White House in October, said the Reuters news agency.

“Trump’s 28-point plan, which we have, enshrines the key understandings reached during the Alaska summit,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters.

“I would say not all, but many provisions of this plan, they seem quite acceptable to us,” Putin aide Yury Ushakov told the TASS Russian state news agency.

The United Kingdom, France and Germany drafted a counter-proposal on Sunday, and a Ukrainian delegation led by former Defence Minister Rustem Umerov met with US negotiators under Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Geneva to discuss both documents.

Europe ruled out accepting territorial exchanges resulting from aggression, and suggested territorial negotiations begin from the line of contact without prior Ukrainian concessions. It also suggested Ukraine maintain a strong army of no fewer than 800,000 people, and receive an effective NATO security guarantee.

Their joint statement on Monday simply said they would “continue intensive work”, with final decisions to be made by Trump and Zelenskyy.

Much had been done to refine the original 28 points into a workable agreement, said Zelenskyy. “Now the list of necessary steps to end the war can become doable,” he told Ukrainians somewhat cryptically, describing the work that remained as “very challenging”.

Ukraine has pushed for a meeting between Zelenskyy and Trump before December to thrash out the plan’s final form, but on Tuesday, Bloomberg released transcripts of a leaked telephone conversation between Trump confidant Steve Witkoff and Putin aide Yury Ushakov, in which Witkoff advised Ushakov to have Putin call Trump before Zelenskyy had a chance to meet him. Witkoff suggested that Putin flatter Trump as a peacemaker to win his favour and shape the peace plan directly with him.

That leak prompted opposition to Witkoff travelling to Moscow next week to discuss the reworked plan with Russian officials. The White House said he is to replace General Keith Kellogg, who resigned as mediator for Ukraine after seeing the original 28-point plan.

“It is clear that Witkoff fully favors the Russians. He cannot be trusted to lead these negotiations. Would a Russian paid agent do less than he?” wrote Republican Congressman Don Bacon on social media.

For those who oppose the Russian invasion and want to see Ukraine prevail as a sovereign & democratic country, it is clear that Witkoff fully favors the Russians. He cannot be trusted to lead these negotiations. Would a Russian paid agent do less than he? He should be fired. https://t.co/dxMsda0YV5

— Rep. Don Bacon 🇺🇸✈️🏍️⭐️🎖️ (@RepDonBacon) November 25, 2025

In his first extensive remarks on the peace proposal, in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan on Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin backed away from an agreement with Ukraine, saying, “Signing documents with the Ukrainian leadership is pointless,” because Zelenskyy was a president who had outlived his mandate.

“I believe that the Ukrainian authorities made a fundamental and strategic mistake when they succumbed to the fear of participating in the presidential elections,” he said, referring to the spring of 2025, when Zelenskyy’s four-year term expired.

Zelenskyy was elected in 2019, and the parliament has twice extended his tenure under the constitutional provision of a national emergency.

Putin said the 28 points did not amount to a peace treaty, calling them “a set of questions that were proposed for discussion and final wording”.

“In general, we agree that this can be the basis for future agreements,” Putin said.

Green card applications from ‘countries of concern’ will be reviewed after Afghan national named as suspect in shooting of National Guard members.

United States President Donald Trump said he plans to suspend immigration from “all Third World countries”, the day after an Afghan national was named as a suspect in the shooting of two members of the National Guard in Washington, DC.

Trump’s announcement marks the latest in a series of escalating restrictions on immigration to the US, after he earlier ordered the US government to re-examine all green card applications from 19 “countries of concern”, in the wake of the Washington, DC, shooting.

“I will permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries to allow the US system to fully recover, terminate all of the millions of Biden illegal admissions,” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform on Thursday.

While he did not define the term “Third World,” the phrase usually refers to developing countries in the Global South.

Trump also said that he will “remove anyone who is not a net asset to the United States, or is incapable of loving our Country”.

He added that all federal benefits and subsidies to “noncitizens” will end, and he will “denaturalize migrants who undermine domestic tranquillity, and deport any foreign national who is a public charge, security risk, or non-compatible with Western civilization”.

US Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Joseph Edlow said earlier on Thursday that, “at the direction” of President Trump, he had ordered “a full-scale, rigorous re-examination of every green card for every alien from every country of concern”.

“The protection of this country and of the American people remains paramount, and the American people will not bear the cost of the prior administration’s reckless resettlement policies,” Edlow said.

Edlow did not elaborate on which countries’ applicants would be reviewed, but his office directed The Associated Press (AP) news agency to a June 4 presidential proclamation restricting citizens of 19 countries from entering the US. The list includes Afghanistan, Haiti, Iran, Myanmar, Venezuela and Yemen.

Citizenship and Immigration Services had earlier announced that it would indefinitely suspend all Afghan immigration requests “pending further review of security and vetting protocols”.

The restrictions on immigrants in the US come as Jeanine Pirro, US attorney for the District of Columbia in Washington, DC, identified the suspect in the shooting of the National Guard members as Rahmanaullah Lakanwal, a 29-year-old Afghan national who previously worked with US forces in Afghanistan.

Lakanwal came to the US under a programme known as “Operation Allies Welcome” following the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, according to Pirro. She said federal authorities, including the FBI, would be reviewing his immigration history and the vetting process.

The Trump administration has already taken aggressive measures to restrict immigration to the US. In October, it announced it would accept only 7,500 refugees in 2026 – the lowest number since 1980.

The US government is also in the midst of a major review of recent US refugee arrivals, according to a memo signed by Edlow and obtained by the AP on Monday.

The memo orders the review of the approximately 200,000 refugees admitted to the US under the administration of President Joe Biden, according to the AP.

It also suspends green card applications from refugees who came to the US during that period.

BREAKINGBREAKING,

US president says second National Guard member is ‘fighting for his life’ after the attack a day earlier in Washington, DC.

United States President Donald Trump said that one of the two National Guard troops shot a day earlier near the White House has died, while the other soldier is “fighting for his life”.

Trump said on Thursday evening that West Virginia National Guard member Sarah Beckstrom died from wounds following the double shooting on Wednesday, a short distance from the White House.

The president hailed Beckstrom as a “highly respected, young, magnificent person” and said the second member of the National Guard targeted in the gun attack was critical.

“He’s in very bad shape,” Trump said as he addressed troops in a video call to mark the Thanksgiving holiday in the US.

This is a breaking news story. More to follow soon. 

Takaichi’s suggestion earlier this month that Tokyo could intervene militarily if Taiwan is attacked has enraged Beijing.

Japan has denied a report that said United States President Donald Trump had advised Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi not to provoke China over Taiwan’s sovereignty.

In a news briefing on Thursday, Japan’s top government spokesperson Minoru Kihara said “there is no such fact” about an article published in The Wall Street Journal claiming that Trump had made such a remark to the Japanese leader.

He declined to comment further on the details of the “diplomatic exchange”.

The row between Asia’s two biggest economies began after Takaichi had suggested earlier this month that Tokyo could intervene militarily in any attack on self-ruled Taiwan, which China claims as part of its territory.

Takaichi’s remark ignited anger in Beijing.

After the incident, Beijing’s Foreign Ministry said that Chinese leader Xi Jinping pressed the issue in a phone call with Trump on Monday, saying Taiwan’s return was an “integral part of the post-war international order”.

The WSJ reported on Thursday that, shortly after that phone call between the US and Chinese leaders, “Trump set up a call with Takaichi and advised her not to provoke Beijing on the question of the island’s sovereignty”. The report quoted unidentified Japanese officials and an American briefed on the call.

Takaichi said in her reporting of the call with Trump that they discussed the US president’s conversation with Xi, as well as bilateral relations.

“President Trump said we are very close friends, and he offered that I should feel free to call him anytime,” she said.

Beijing, which has threatened to use force to take control of the self-ruled island, also took other punitive steps to register its anger over Takaichi’s initial remarks in parliament on November 7.

It summoned Tokyo’s ambassador and advised Chinese citizens against travelling to Japan.

As the diplomatic row escalated, the Chinese embassy in Tokyo issued a new warning to its citizens on Wednesday, saying there had been a surge in crime in Japan, and that Chinese citizens had reported “being insulted, beaten and injured for no reason”.

Japan’s Foreign Ministry denied any increase in crime, citing figures from the National Police Agency in response that showed the number of murders from January to October had halved compared with the same period in 2024.

Last week, Japanese media reported that China will again ban all imports of Japanese seafood as the diplomatic dispute between the two countries escalated.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun reiterated on Thursday a call for Japan to officially retract Takaichi’s comments.

“The Japanese side’s attempt to downplay, dodge, and cover up Prime Minister Takaichi’s seriously erroneous remarks by not raising them again is self-deception,” Guo told a regular news briefing.

“China will never accept this.”

Meanwhile, Trump’s public silence on Japan’s escalating dispute with China has further frayed nerves in Tokyo.

Some officials worry that Trump may be prepared to soften support for Taiwan in pursuit of a trade accord with China, a move they fear will embolden Beijing and cause conflict in an increasingly militarised East Asia.

“For Trump, what matters most is US-China relations,” said Kazuhiro Maejima, a professor of US politics at Sophia University.

“Japan has always been treated as a tool or a card to manage that relationship,” Maejima told Reuters news agency.

Washington’s envoy to Tokyo has said the US supports Japan in the face of China’s “coercion”, but two senior ruling party lawmakers said they had hoped for more full-throated support from their top security ally in Washington, DC.

US President Donald Trump has called for a review of all Afghans who entered the US under the Biden administration, after two National Guard members were shot and critically wounded in Washington DC. US immigration authorities have also halted all Afghan-related applications.

NEW YORK — After President Trump’s reported intervention, Paramount Pictures is set to distribute Brett Ratner’s “Rush Hour 4,” a project that Hollywood had eschewed after earlier sexual misconduct allegations against the director.

Paramount Pictures on Tuesday was in closing talks to distribute the film, according to a person close to the negotiations who requested anonymity because they weren’t authorized to announce a deal. Paramount would be stepping in to take a distribution fee on the film, not finance it.

In 2017, during the #MeToo movement, six women said Ratner sexually harassed them in a Los Angeles Times report. Warner Bros., which had a $450-million co-financing deal with his production company, severed ties with Ratner. Ratner, who denied the allegations, hasn’t produced a film this decade.

But on Sunday, Semafor reported that Trump personally requested Paramount take on “Rush Hour 4.” Paramount recently merged with Skydance in an $8-billion deal that required regulatory approval from the Trump administration. Trump has praised the studio’s new chair and chief executive, David Ellison, the son of Oracle executive chair and prominent Trump supporter Larry Ellison.

The White House didn’t immediately comment Wednesday.

Ratner had been shopping “Rush Hour 4” after Warner Bros., which released the three previous films in the franchise, passed on the project. The movie would reteam Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker in the action-comedy series launched in 1998, with sequels in 2001 and 2007.

Ratner has managed to get one other film made: a documentary on First Lady Melania Trump. Earlier this year, Amazon MGM Studios acquired the film for a reported $40 million. It’s set to open in theaters Jan. 30.

Coyle writes for the Associated Press.

Nov. 27 (UPI) — President Donald Trump has withdrawn South Africa’s invitation to next year’s G20 summit in Miami, Fla., escalating a row with Johannesburg.

Trump made the announcement Wednesday on his Truth Social platform as this year’s summit of the wealthy nations, held in South Africa, came to an end without the United States participating.

“South Africa has demonstrated to the World they are not a country worthy of Membership anywhere, and we are going to stop all payments and subsidies to them, effective immediately,” the American leader said in the statement.

Trump has escalated his criticisms against South Africa since returning to the White House.

In February, he threatened to cut U.S. funding to the African nation over a new law allowing authorities to expropriate land in the public interest as part of efforts to redress racial inequalities rooted in apartheid.

Though the law states that property cannot be expropriated arbitrarily and allows expropriation without compensation only in limited cases, Trump accused South Africa of “confiscating land” in violation of the human rights of White South Africans.

Trump has since escalated his rhetoric, alleging that White South Africans face genocide — a claim rejected by South African officials and regional leaders and not supported by available evidence.

After Trump announced that the United States wouldn’t be attending the G20 summit in Johannesburg due to “Afrikaners … being killed and slaughtered and their land and farms … being illegally confiscated,” the African National Congress described Trump’s allegations as “part of a long and disgraceful pattern of imperial arrogance and disinformation.”

“These statements are not borne of ignorance, they are deliberate attempts to distort the reality of South Africa’s democracy and to mobilize racial fear for political gain in the United States,” the African National Congress, the ruling political party of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, said Nov. 8 in a statement.

“Donald Trump’s continued siding with racist and right-wing movements across the world is well-documented and consistent with his dangerous rhetoric. From defending White supremacists at Charlottesville to vilifying African nations as ‘expletive countries,’ his record speaks of a man driven by prejudice, not principle.”

Trump on Tuesday reiterated his allegations that Afrikaners were being killed and their land being stolen from them, while stating that at the conclusion of the G20 summit in Johannesburg, the South African delegation “refused” to hand over the G20 presidency to a senior U.S. Embassy official who attended the closing ceremony.

In response, the office of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said that since the United States did not participate in the summit, it handed over the instruments of the G20 presidency to a U.S. Embassy official at South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Cooperation.

The office added that it will continue to participate as a full, active and founding member of the G20.

“It is regrettable that despite the efforts and numerous attempts by President Ramaphosa and his administration to reset the diplomatic relationship with the U.S., President Trump continues to apply punitive measures against South Africa based on misinformation and distortions about our country,” his office said in a statement.

WASHINGTON — President Trump has a lot riding on a precarious agreement with Taliban militants to end America’s longest war. But the process, which began over the weekend, is fraught with obstacles that could lengthen the conflict rather than conclude it.

The first step in the deal agreed to by the U.S. and the Taliban is a seven-day period of “reduced violence” in which neither side attacks. The period began Saturday and includes a moratorium on the roadside explosive devices, rockets and suicide bombers that have been the Taliban trademark and continued as recently as last month.

It falls short of a cease-fire, which the Taliban consistently refused to consider. But if the weeklong pause is declared a success, U.S. and Taliban leaders will sign a deal in Doha, Qatar, on Feb. 29 that begins the drawdown of American troops in exchange for Taliban vows to fight terrorism and stop attacks against the United States.

“This [reduction in violence phase] will serve as a test period of Taliban intent and control of their forces, and as a proof of concept of their commitment to the peace process,” senior State Department official Molly Phee said last week.

“It has taken a lot of work, frankly, to get to this point. But we believe we have established the conditions that can transform the trajectory of the conflict,” she added. “It is high time for the parties to begin moving off the battlefield and into a political process.”

Phee is deputy to Zalmay Khalilzad, the administration’s special representative for Afghanistan who has led more than a year of negotiations with a Taliban team that includes men once jailed in the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

As of Thursday, Taliban attacks and U.S. airstrikes had fallen off significantly and the truce was largely holding, U.S. officials said.
.

But numerous obstacles will complicate the next phase, which includes bringing the Afghan government into talks with the Taliban and other domestic organizations. The government has been kept out of negotiations until now, in part because Taliban leaders don’t recognize it.

Some critics worry that in a rush to secure an election-year troop withdrawal, Trump might agree to terms that fail to protect U.S. counterterrorism operations or hard-fought civil rights in Afghanistan. Others say conditions for withdrawing U.S. troops are as good now as they ever will be.

“This is a long shot under the best of circumstances,” said Bruce Riedel, a veteran CIA officer who specialized in the region and advised Democratic and Republican White Houses. “Trump badly wants to claim a victory.”

But Riedel said one hard part will be working directly with the Taliban without undercutting the Afghan government, which Washington has backed throughout the nearly two decades of U.S. intervention launched after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. “We are stuck in a war with no easy way out without leaving one side in the lurch,” he said.

Complicating matters even more, the Trump administration now finds itself in the odd position of entering into important deals with the Taliban without a clear partner in the Afghan government.

Official presidential election results announced last week — nearly five months after the vote — gave the victory to incumbent President Ashraf Ghani. But his chief rival, Abdullah Abdullah, has refused to recognize that outcome and declared himself the victor. Within days, the opposing camps deployed their own security forces in an increasingly tense Kabul, and regional warlords were choosing sides.

When asked about the election results, Pompeo declined to endorse Ghani.

Negotiating with the Taliban presents its own challenges. Like the rest of Afghan society, the sprawling group is riven by tribal and regional rivalries. And it has killed hundreds of Americans.

It remains to be seen what happens if attacks against Americans resume after the seven-day pause. Officials say they will deal with such attacks on a case-by-case basis. But Trump has said killing Americans is a red line. He hastily backed out of a deal with the Taliban last fall after it launched an attack that killed a U.S. soldier.

The agreement to be signed Feb. 29 calls for an initial U.S. troop withdrawal over a five-month period. The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Austin “Scotty” Miller, has told Pentagon officials he can safely reduce the U.S. troop level from the roughly 12,000 service members now there to 8,600.

Pentagon officials have insisted that even the first round of withdrawals will be conditioned on Taliban leaders not permitting Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups on Afghan territory.

Other officials have also pressed for limiting troop withdrawals unless violence levels remain low and Taliban leaders follow through on promises to hold planned power-sharing talks with Afghan government negotiators.

Whether the U.S. insists on those conditions before making steep troop reductions will depend to a large degree on Trump, said a senior U.S. Defense official who did not want to be quoted speaking about the internal deliberations.

Critics fear that as his reelection campaign moves into full swing this summer, Trump may order troop withdrawals whether or not the looming Afghan peace talks go smoothly, in order to be seen as delivering on his promise to end an era of lengthy U.S. overseas wars.

Trump “wants to bring the force levels down. He’s made that clear. The question is whether he is willing to do it if things start to fall apart. And they usually do in Afghanistan,” a senior Defense official said.

The Pentagon plans to continue its training of Afghan army and police, even as it sharply cuts overall force levels. “A big part” of the remaining U.S. force will be focused on that training, said another U.S. Defense official, who was not authorized to speak publicly.

Miller has also developed options for continuing military operations against Al Qaeda, Islamic State and other terrorist groups, using forces stationed in the region but outside Afghanistan, if necessary.

As long as the Afghan peace talks remain on track, Pentagon officials believe counterterrorism operations can be carried out with relatively small numbers of special operations troops and airstrikes.

Douglas Lute, a retired U.S. Army general who coordinated fighting in Afghanistan late in the George W. Bush administration and under President Obama, said improved U.S. intelligence in the region and a diminished Al Qaeda threat bode well for security.

“We have intelligence access that we didn’t have before,” Lute said. “We’re much better than we were back when we were simply launching cruise missiles into the desert.”

U.S. officials have also pressed NATO members and other countries with troops in Afghanistan not to exit too hastily. There are roughly 8,000 non-U.S. foreign troops there now, and a quick exit of many of them would force steeper cutbacks in critical training programs.

It is unclear whether the agreement will include a timetable or explicit language committing Washington to a complete pullout of its troops. But it’s unlikely the Taliban would sign on to a deal that does not at least theoretically hold that out as the goal, said Laurel Miller, the former acting special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan at the State Department.

“You have to look at the U.S.-Taliban agreement as the easy part of the deal,” she said. “It’s a viable first step. Whether that first step leads to further steps is still an open question.”

She said the likely message that the administration is sending the Afghan government is: We’re leaving, so you better make the best deal you can. And if you do, we will support you with aid.

However, she added, “If the U.S. withdraws its troops, I’m deeply skeptical that the U.S. Congress is going to continue to send billions of dollars a year to prop up the Afghan government.”

Congress has appropriated nearly $137 billion in aid for Afghanistan since 2002, with about 63% earmarked for security forces and 26% for development projects, according to a report last month by the Congressional Research Service. In 2020, the White House is seeking $4.8 billion in military assistance and $400 million in economic aid.

Another wild card is Pakistan, which has backed the Taliban and benefited from the unrest in its neighbor. Although Pompeo has invested considerable time courting senior Pakistani officials, Islamabad’s support for peace talks is unclear.

Michèle Flournoy, a former undersecretary for Defense, said that while she is concerned Trump might “lose patience and pull the plug,” she believed chances for a broad agreement were the best they have been “across three administrations.”

“While we have been fighting this for 20 years, the Afghans have been fighting this for 40,” she said, referring to the civil war and Soviet intervention that predated U.S. involvement. “So there is a degree of exhaustion on both sides and a degree of stalemate.”

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is asking Congress to give it four additional months to complete the 2020 Census, blaming the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Census Bureau had previously halted its in-person outreach because of the virus’ spread, but it had maintained it would still be able to meet its legal obligation to present results to the president and Congress by Dec. 31.

In a conference call with members of Congress Monday, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross asked for legislation giving the bureau an additional 120 days to present the results.

Field operations, such as going door to door to collect information for those who did not respond to the census online or by mail, are now scheduled to resume June 1 and would last until Oct. 31, according to the bureau, which falls under the Commerce Department.

That means rather than have the data ready by Dec. 31, the bureau would need until April 30, 2021. Data used to redraw the country’s congressional district boundaries would be delivered to the states no later than July 31, 2021, rather than in March.

The existing deadlines are set in federal law, and it will take an act of Congress to move them.

President Trump on Monday said the bureau would need a “major delay” and questioned if 120 days was long enough. “Obviously they can’t be doing very much right now,” Trump said at a briefing on the coronavirus. “How can you possibly be knocking on doors for a long period of time now?”

The 2020 census was already unusually politically fraught after the administration attempted to include a question about citizenship on the form, a move that was ultimately rejected by the Supreme Court. Critics said the effort was an attempt to suppress census response rates in blue states with large immigrant communities, like California.

Democrats said they would review the bureau’s request, but would also want to see detailed information supporting the need for a delay.

“The oversight committee will carefully examine the administration’s request, but we need more information that the administration has been unwilling to provide,” said Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.), chairwoman of the Committee on Oversight and Reform, in a statement. “The director of the Census Bureau was not even on today’s call, and the administration has refused for weeks to allow him to brief members of our committee, despite repeated requests.”

William Frey, a demographer for the Brookings Institution, said it makes practical sense to ask for a delay now, so Congress has time to consider it.

“It’s a fairly big deal to do this. But on the other hand, we’re in a fairly unusual situation,” Frey said.

For the first time this year, people can fill out the census online, and so far 48% of households have responded, according to the bureau. But millions of Americans don’t respond, prompting the need for a half million census workers to make in-person visits nationwide to ensure an accurate count.

But door-to-door canvassing is difficult to imagine at a time when governors in most states have ordered nonessential workers to stay home to slow the spread of the coronavirus that has more than 500,000 positive U.S. cases already.

“People are pretty likely to be home, [so] it seems like a good opportunity to do the census. But it seems unlikely that people are going to feel safe doing that [door-knocking],” Menlo College Political Scientist Melissa Michelson said. “It’s another reminder that we are not living in normal times and a lot of things that would happen this year are not going to happen.”

There is some precedent to a delay. More than 100 years ago, the census director blamed the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, along with World War I and other things, for a five-month delay in delivering the results of the 1920 census.

The once-every-decade count of the country’s population is mandated by the Constitution and the results are used to redraw congressional districts so that each represents about the same number of people. A delay in the results could have a cascading effect, as they are also used to redraw state legislative districts, city council boundaries and even school board seats ahead of the 2022 election.

Michelson said a delay in providing the data to states would compress the time left to redraw those boundaries, and to litigate the court battles that occur in some states over whether the lines were fairly drawn, all before the 2022 primary elections begin.

The decision could have a pronounced impact on California, where a 14-member citizen’s redistricting commission will draw boundaries for congressional and legislative districts for just the second time since voters wrested the job from the California Legislature in 2008. By law, the panel — consisting of Democrats, Republicans and unaffiliated voters chosen through a lengthy public vetting process — must base its work on detailed census data.

In 2011, the citizens panel held extensive hearings across California seeking public input on how best to draw legislative and congressional districts with an eye toward fair representation. The commission’s final deliberations on the maps came in late July 2011.

But under the new proposed census schedule, that’s the month in 2021 that states would first receive the data. That delay could push the California commission’s work dangerously close to the 2022 election cycle and could potentially bleed into the time frame in which candidates file paperwork to run for those positions.

Times staff writer John Myers in Sacramento contributed to this report

President Trump has united the Latino vote … in its disdain for the policies of his second term.

A new study from the Pew Research Center found that a majority of U.S. Latino adults disapprove of the job Trump has done since returning to the White House earlier this year.

Ongoing Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids throughout the country and continued economic turmoil have led many Latinos to grow upset with the politician — whose 2024 campaign centered on carrying out the “largest deportation operation in American history” and fixing the nation’s fledgling economy.

Pew’s findings revealed that 70% of Latinos disapprove of the way Trump is handling his job as president. When it came to immigration, 65% disapproved of the current administration’s approach to the issue. Regarding the economy, 61% said Trump’s policies have made economic conditions worse.

However, party affiliation still played a significant role in how Latinos graded Trump’s performance. Overall, 81% of 2024 Latino Trump voters approved of his job so far — an impressive level of support, though it has notably dipped from 93% since the onset of his second term.

Among Latinos who voted for Kamala Harris, Trump had a 4% approval rating in February, which has since plummeted to 0%. His approval rating with 2024 Latino nonvoters moved from 42% down to 27%. As a whole, the president’s approval rating among all Latino groups has slumped from 42% at the beginning of the year to 27% this fall.

In the Pew study, Latino voters also expressed pessimism about their future in the U.S. Of those surveyed, 68% said the situation for U.S. Latinos is worse today than it was a year ago, 9% responded that it was better and 22% felt it was about the same. Harris voters overwhelming felt the situation is worsening for Latinos at 89%; 66% of nonvoters agreed with that assessment; and 31% of Trump voters felt Latinos were worse off now than last year.

A plurality of voters who went red in 2024 — 40% — felt the situation for Latinos in the U.S. was about the same year over year. Additionally, 28% of that voting bloc believed U.S. Latinos are better off now compared with 2024.

This data set lines up with a recent Axios/Ipsos poll conducted in partnership with Noticias Telemundo.

Of the more than 1,100 people surveyed, 65% said that it’s a “bad time” to be Latino or Hispanic in the U.S.; when the poll was conducted in March 2024, that figure stood at 40%. When broken down by party, 84% of Democrats said it was a bad time, compared with 68% of independents and 32% of Republicans.

At 78%, a majority of those polled by Pew felt that Trump’s policies have been more harmful than helpful to the Latino community. Harris voters were once again united against Trump with 97% agreeing that his policies have negatively affected their community. Nonvoters were in agreement with 78% feeling the Republican president’s policies have had adverse effects on Latinos.

Trump voters were split on the issue with 41% saying Trump’s policies have been helpful to Latinos, 34% believing they’ve been harmful and 22% responding that they’ve had no effect.

These findings seemingly muddle the narrative that Latinos nationwide have made a rightward turn politically in recent years.

In the 2024 presidential election, Trump garnered 48% of the Latino vote compared with Harris’ 51% share and significantly jumped past the 36% clip that he got in the 2020 presidential election. Initial 2024 exit polls actually underestimated Latinos’ Trump support, with the Republican candidate tracking at 46% of the Latino vote on election day.

Additionally, 47% of naturalized citizens of all ethnic backgrounds voted for Trump in 2024, compared with 38% in 2020. In that same voting bloc 51% voted for Harris in 2024, a notable drop from the 59% who voted for Joe Biden in 2020.

Latino naturalized citizens recorded a 12% bump in voting for Trump, jumping from 39% in 2020 to 51% in 2024.

Bangkok, Thailand – Stewed, seasoned with sugar and cloves, deep-fried or dished up in a zingy chilli mince – the diets of most Thais are incomplete without pork.

But a $3bn market – supplied nearly entirely by domestic pig farmers – may be about to face competition like never before from the giant hog farms of the world’s third-largest producer, the United States.

While the fine print of the Thai government’s preliminary trade deal with the US is yet to be revealed, some details have emerged.

Washington has a 10,000-item-long wish list of goods it wants to enter Thailand duty-free to reduce its $45.5bn trade deficit with the Southeast Asian country, an imbalance President Donald Trump says unfairly disadvantages US producers.

The list includes pork, corn, soya beans and some fruits.

Shortly after Trump met Thailand’s caretaker prime minister, Anutin Charnvirakul, on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Malaysia last month, the White House revealed some of the many strings attached to its trade deal, which set the tariff rate for the kingdom’s exports to the US at 19 percent.

They include Thailand agreeing to “address and prevent barriers to US food and agricultural products in the Thai market”, according to the White House, and a commitment to “expediting access” for US meat and poultry products.

That has panicked Thailand’s pig farmers, who say the industry may not survive a flood of cheaper, subsidised US pork, which is fattened up on ractopamine, a livestock additive banned in many countries, including the kingdom.

If US pork is allowed into Thailand without duties, nothing less than the kingdom’s food security is at stake, according to Worawut Siripun, deputy secretary-general of the Swine Raisers Association of Thailand.

“Producers will not be able to survive and will stop raising pigs. But the risks are not only for farms facing falling pig prices,” Worawut, who has about 10,000 pigs, told Al Jazeera.

“Those who grow feed crops are also affected, as well as animal feed traders, animal feed producers, and veterinary drug sellers. Everyone in the production cycle is impacted.”

Trump had made trade talks with Thailand contingent on Bangkok signing an extended ceasefire agreement with Cambodia.

But in the weeks since meeting Anutin, Thailand has suspended truce talks over alleged Cambodian breaches of the terms of the agreement.

While there are conflicting signals over whether tensions with Cambodia have put Thailand’s trade negotiations with its biggest export destination on the back burner, farmers and livestock companies are bracing for intensified competition.

Thailand’s pork industry has weathered challenges ranging from outbreaks of swine flu to illegal imports from China and Vietnam.

But it faces high costs, largely as a result of government price controls on corn and soya used to feed pigs and other livestock – a measure intended to protect the country’s crop farmers, a key voting bloc.

And like most of Thailand’s agricultural producers, the country’s pig farmers deal with slim margins.

“Both imported and locally produced feed materials in Thailand are more expensive compared to the US, where feed is cheaper,” Worawut said.

Corn and other feed farmers are also bracing for tough times.

Thailand announced earlier this month that it would lift its annual corn import limit, from approximately 50,000 tonnes to 1 million tonnes, and scrap a 20 percent tariff to appease Washington.

Prime Minister Anutin is likely to dissolve parliament in the coming weeks and set a date for new elections.

He is angling to return to office in defiance of critics who say he has already given away too much to Washington before a comprehensive trade deal has been signed.

Trump officials have already announced a deal to gain preferential access to Thailand’s rare earths, the sale of billions of dollars of US-made aircraft and a promise by Bangkok not to tax US digital services companies.

Anutin’s bargaining position has been weakened by tough economic conditions.

On Monday, the Office of the National Economic and Social Development Council trimmed its economic growth forecast for 2026 to 1.2 percent, down from an expected 2 percent expansion this year – by far the weakest performance among Southeast Asia’s leading economies.

With a third round of trade talks with the US under a cloud following the suspension of the Thailand-Cambodia peace deal, the main political opposition party has called on the government to pause the negotiations and consult with local stakeholders.

“This is a crucial moment,” said Weerayut Karnchuchat, deputy leader of the opposition People’s Party, Thailand’s largest in parliament.

“The minister of commerce has said negotiations will conclude by the end of 2025. That leaves around two months. The government should hold eight weeks of stakeholder hearings … especially groups directly affected, such as corn farmers.”

Thailand should take stock and assess if regional peers with full US trade deals – including Cambodia, Vietnam and Malaysia – are happy with the outcomes and “whether Thailand is offering too much”, he added.

For many midsized businesses, the return of Trump and his trade war has made for a difficult year, with demand depressed across countless supply chains exposed to the US.

Orders are retreating inside Thailand for everything from lightbulbs to electrical wires needed to run factories that export to the US.

Tipok Lertwattanaweerakul, a durian farmer and middleman, said he has seen his profit margins slashed.

Saudi Arabian buyers who sold durian to customers in the US had been Lertwattanaweerakul’s main source of business, but with the Arab country hit with a 10 percent tariff, “they are no longer purchasing from me at all,” he told Al Jazeera.

In a fiery rebuttal to allegations he’d criminally misrepresented facts in his mortgage documents, Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Dublin) sued Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte on Tuesday — accusing him of criminally misusing government databases to baselessly target President Trump’s political opponents.

“Pulte has abused his position by scouring databases at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — two government-sponsored enterprises — for the private mortgage records of several prominent Democrats,” attorneys for Swalwell wrote in a federal lawsuit filed in Washington, D.C. “He then used those records to concoct fanciful allegations of mortgage fraud, which he referred to the Department of Justice for prosecution.”

They said Pulte launched his attack on Swalwell at a particularly inopportune time, just as Swalwell was launching his campaign for California governor.

Pulte’s attack, Swalwell’s attorneys wrote, “was not only a gross mischaracterization of reality” but “a gross abuse of power that violated the law,” infringing on Swalwell’s free speech rights to criticize the president without fear of reprisal, and violating the Privacy Act of 1974, which they said bars federal officials from “leveraging their access to citizens’ private information as a tool for harming their political opponents.”

Pulte, the FHFA and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday.

Pulte has previously defended his work probing mortgage documents of prominent Democrats, saying no one is above the law. His referrals have exclusively targeted Democrats, despite reporting on Republicans taking similar actions on their mortgages.

Swalwell’s lawsuit is the latest counterpunch to Pulte’s campaign, and part of mounting scrutiny over its unprecedented nature and unorthodox methods — not just from targets of his probes but from other investigators, too, according to one witness.

In addition to Swalwell, Pulte has referred mortgage fraud allegations to the Justice Department against Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), New York Atty. Gen. Letitia James and Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, who have all denied wrongdoing and suggested the allegations amount to little more than political retribution.

James was criminally charged by an inexperienced, loyalist federal prosecutor specially appointed by Trump in Virginia, though a judge has since thrown out that case on the grounds that the prosecutor, Lindsey Halligan, was illegally appointed. The judge also threw out a case against former FBI Director James Comey, another Trump opponent.

Cook’s attorneys slammed Pulte in a letter to the Justice Department, writing that his “decision to use the FHFA to selectively — and publicly — investigate and target the President’s designated political enemies gives rise to the unmistakable impression that he has been improperly coordinating with the White House to manufacture flimsy predicates to launch these probes.”

Schiff also has lambasted Trump and Pulte for their targeting of him and other Democrats, and cheered the tossing of the cases against James and Comey, calling it “a triumph of the rule of law.”

In recent days, federal prosecutors in Maryland — where Schiff’s case is being investigated — have also started asking questions about the actions of Pulte and other Trump officials, according to Christine Bish, a Sacramento-area real estate agent and Republican congressional candidate who was summoned to Maryland to answer questions in the matter last week.

Pulte has alleged that Schiff broke the law by claiming primary residence for mortgages in both Maryland and California. Schiff has said he never broke any law and was always forthcoming with his mortgage lenders.

Bish has been investigating Schiff’s mortgage records since 2020, and had repeatedly submitted documents about Schiff to the federal government — first to the Office of Congressional Ethics, then earlier this year to an FHFA tip line and to the FBI, she told The Times.

When Trump subsequently posted one of Schiff’s mortgage documents to his Truth Social platform, Bish said she believed it was one she had submitted to the FHFA and FBI, because it was highlighted exactly as she had highlighted it. Then, she saw she had missed a call from Pulte, and was later asked by Pulte’s staff to email Pulte “the full file” she had worked up on Schiff.

“They wanted to make sure that I had sent the whole file,” Bish said.

Bish said she was subsequently interviewed via Google Meet on Oct. 22 by someone from the FHFA inspector general’s office and an FBI agent. She then got a subpoena in the mail that she interpreted as requiring her to be in Maryland last week. There, she was interviewed again, for about an hour, by the same official from the inspector general’s office and another FBI agent, she said — and was surprised their questions seemed more focused on her communications with people in the federal government than on Schiff.

“They wanted to know if I had been talking to anybody else,” she said. “You know, what did I communicate? Who did I communicate with?”

Schiff’s office declined to comment. However, Schiff’s attorney has previously told Justice Department officials that there was “ample basis” for them to launch an investigation into Pulte and his campaign targeting Trump’s opponents, calling it a “highly irregular” and “sordid” effort.

The acting FHFA inspector general at the time Bish was first contacted, Joe Allen, has since been fired, which has also raised questions.

On Nov. 19, Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach) — the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee — wrote a letter to Pulte denouncing his probes as politically motivated, questioning Allen’s dismissal and demanding documentation from Pulte, including any communications he has had with the White House.

Swalwell’s attorneys wrote in Tuesday’s lawsuit that he never claimed primary residence in both California and Washington, D.C., as alleged, and had not broken any laws.

They accused Pulte of orchestrating a coordinated effort to spread the allegations against Swalwell via a vast network of conservative influencers, which they said had “harmed [Swalwell’s] reputation at a critical juncture in his career: the very moment when he had planned to announce his campaign for Governor of California.”

They said the “widespread publication of information about the home where his wife and young children reside” had also “exposed him to heightened security risks and caused him significant anguish and distress.”

Swalwell said in a statement that Pulte has “combed through private records of political opponents” to “silence them,” which shouldn’t be allowed.

“There’s a reason the First Amendment — the freedom of speech — comes before all others,” he said.

Police in Washington say one suspect in custody following the shooting one block from the White House.

A Georgia judge has dismissed the sprawling 2020 election interference case against Donald Trump, ending the final effort to prosecute the president for allegedly attempting to overturn his loss to Joe Biden.

Peter Skandalakis, who took over the case after the initial prosecutor’s removal, asked Judge Scott McAfee to dismiss the charges on Wednesday.

Trump’s lawyer Steve Sadow praised the decision to end the “political persecution” against the president.

The dismissal concludes the last of Trump’s four criminal cases, only one of which saw trial and resulted in a conviction.

A Georgia appeals court removed Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from the case after it determined a romantic relationship with a special prosecutor created an “appearance of impropriety”.

Skandalakis, executive director of the nonpartisan agency Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, appointed himself to the case after Willis’ disqualification and when other state prosecutors declined to take the case.

In Wednesday’s motion to a Fulton County judge, he said he was discontinuing the case “to serve the interests of justice and promote judicial finality”.

“As a former elected official who ran as both a Democrat and a Republican and now is the Executive Director of a non-partisan agency, this decision is not guided by a desire to advance an agenda but is based on my beliefs and understanding of the law,” Skandalakis added.

Around five million votes for president were cast in Georgia in 2020, with Biden winning the critical swing state by just under 12,000 votes.

Trump and some of his allies refused to accept the result, and the state quickly became a focal point for efforts to overturn the election.

In January 2021, The Washington Post published a recording of Trump speaking with Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

“I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state,” Trump said in the recording.

Willis began investigating Trump’s activities soon after the report, convening a special grand jury to weigh the facts.

Willis filed an indictment in August 2023 alleging that Trump conspired with 18 other defendants to interfere in the election result. The charges included racketeering and other state offences.

The group “refused to accept that Trump lost, and they knowingly and wilfully joined a conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump”.

Four co-defendants took plea deals with prosecutors that resulted mostly in fines, suspended sentences and community service, including attorneys Sidney Powell, Kenneth Cheseboro, and Jenna Ellis.

Wednesday’s dismissal also applies to the remaining co-defendants, including former New York mayor and Trump’s former attorney Rudy Giuliani and Mark Meadows, chief of staff during Trump’s first presidency.

Mr Sadow, president Trump’s lead attorney in the case, praised the decision to drop the charges.

“The political persecution of President Trump by disqualified DA Fani Willis is finally over,” he said. “This case should never have been brought. A fair and impartial prosecutor has put an end to this lawfare.”

The Georgia election interference case was once considered the most threatening of Trump’s four criminal indictments, because he could not pardon himself from state-level charges if he returned to office.

Prosecutors brought Trump to the Fulton County Jail, where they took his mugshot.

Legal experts who closely followed the case were not surprised by its dismissal. A judge tossed out several of the charges in 2024, and Willis was disqualified a few months later.

Willis’ removal raised doubts about whether a replacement would take up such a complicated prosecution. Trump’s 2024 election essentially put his case on hold until his term ends in 2029.

“It was incredibly unlikely it was going to go forward anyway, because the amount of financial resources and man hours necessary to take on this case didn’t seem to be within the scope of what Peter Skandalakis had,” said Anthony Michael Kreis, a professor at the Georgia State College of Law.

However, Mr Kries was surprised by some of Skandalakis’ reasoning for dropping the case.

“I think the report itself to me is a little more surprising because it seems to give the president and some of his allies a lot of benefit of the doubt, given what the evidence brought forth looked like,” he said.

Trump has also faced a series of other criminal proceedings.

These include a 2024 conviction in a New York hush-money case, and he is appealing against it.

Two additional federal cases – one alleging he conspired to overturn the 2020 election and another accusing him of unlawfully retaining classified documents – were dropped following his return to the White House.

He also faces several high-profile civil lawsuits which are progressing through the appeals courts.

Earlier this month, Trump asked the US Supreme Court to review the $5m (£3.6m) civil case brought by writer E Jean Carroll, after a federal appeals court upheld the award and declined to rehear the matter. The court said he defamed and sexually abused Ms Carroll, allegations he denies.

In August, a New York appeals court threw out a $500m civil fraud penalty against Trump that resulted from a separate, civil fraud lawsuit brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James.

LONDON — President Trump’s efforts to broker an end to the Russia-Ukraine war closely mirrors the tactics he used to end two years of fighting between Israel and Hamas: bold terms that favor one side, deadlines for the combatants and vague outlines for what comes next. The details — enforcing the terms, guaranteeing security, who pays for rebuilding — matter less.

“You know what the deadline is to me? When it’s over.” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One Tuesday.

The formula has worked so far in the tense Middle East, though its long-term viability remains in question. Trump got his moment to claim credit for “peace” in the region from the podium of the Israeli parliament. Even there, he made clear that next on his priority list was resolving the largest armed conflict in Europe since World War II.

“Maybe we set out like a 20-point peace proposal, just like we did in Gaza,” U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff told Yuri Ushakov, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy adviser in a phone call the day after Trump’s speech, on Oct. 14. A recording of that call leaked to Bloomberg News.

They did just that, issuing a 28-point plan heavily tilted toward Russia’s interests that set off alarms in Europe, which had not been consulted. Trump insisted Ukraine had until Nov. 27 — Thanksgiving in the U.S. — to accept it.

But by Tuesday, Trump had eased off the hard deadline. It seemed clear, even to Trump, that the Israel-Gaza model doesn’t fully apply in Russia and Ukraine as long as Putin refuses to be flattered, pushed or otherwise moved to take the first step of a ceasefire, as Israel and Hamas consented for different reasons on Oct. 9. Making the point, Putin launched waves of bombings on Ukraine Tuesday and Wednesday even as American negotiators renewed Trump’s push to end the war.

“I thought (a Russia-Ukraine deal) would have been an easier one, but I think we’re making progress,” Trump said during the annual White House turkey pardon to mark the Thanksgiving holiday. Hours later, he told reporters that the 28-point plan actually “was not a plan, just a concept.”

The president’s goal may not be a formal, long-lasting peace treaty, one expert said.

“Trump’s approach emphasizes the proclamation of a ceasefire, not its observance,” Mariia Zolkina, a political analyst at the Kyiv-based Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation, wrote on Liga.net, a Ukrainian news outlet, adding: “Donald Trump is not interested in whether the ceasefire will be sustainable.”

Similarities to the tactics and style used in the Israel-Gaza talks

Fresh off the Gaza deal and coveting the Nobel Peace Prize, Trump named his next priority before he’d even left the Israeli Knesset.

“If you don’t mind, Steve, let’s focus on Russia first, All right?” Trump said, turning to Witkoff.

Where the Gaza ceasefire agreement had 20 points, the Russia-Ukraine proposal would start with 28 items and include more detail on who would pay for reconstruction. They envision “peace” boards headed by the president to lead and administer the aftermath. Both lack detail on incentives for complying and enforcement. And both depend on a ceasefire.

Fabian Zuleeg, chief executive of the Brussels-based European Policy Centre think tank, said the proposals for Gaza and Ukraine show a kind of “naivete by believing that by intervening at that level, by imposing your will on something like this, that you will reach some form of long-term conclusion.”

He said both proposals reflect Trump’s political and personal self-interest.

“In the end, the focus is solely on what Trump thinks he will get out of this in terms of reputation and money,” Zuleeg said.

Each Trump administration plan to end the wars heavily favor one side.

The Trump plan for Gaza leans to Israeli terms. It makes disarming Hamas a central condition for any progress in rebuilding the devastated territory. It also lays out no strict timetable for a full Israeli troop withdrawal, making it conditional on deployment of an international security force.

For Russia and Ukraine, Witkoff looked to open peace plan talks with terms skewing toward Russia. He quietly hosted Kirill Dmitriev, a close ally of Putin’s, for talks in south Florida to help launch the plan that opened talks in Geneva, according to a senior administration official and a U.S. official familiar with the matter who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity. The White House insists that the plan was U.S.-authored with input from both the Ukrainians and Russians.

But that’s where the similarities end. The differences are buy-in — and Putin

The draft that was formally presented to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky decidedly favored the Russians, with no European input. In contrast, the Gaza ceasefire talks got buy-in from Egypt, Qatari, Jordanian, Saudi and other regional powers.

The 28-point Russia-Ukraine plan called for Ukraine to give up land in the industrial Donbas region that the Russians currently don’t control and dramatically shrink the size of its military. It also effectively gave Russia oversight of both NATO and EU expansion. The draft has narrowed by a few points since it was first presented, and Trump is sending his envoys on a bit of shuttle diplomacy to “sell it,” as he said. He said Witkoff will visit Moscow next week — perhaps joined by his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who was also involved in the Gaza plan. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll will meet with the Ukranians.

European leaders worried that Trump is leaving them out of high-level discussions and vulnerable to Russian aggression.

“He appears perfectly ready to sacrifice Ukraine’s security and Europe’s in the process,” Hannah Neumann, a German member of the European Parliament, said of Trump on Tuesday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu resisted Trump’s pressure to agree to a ceasefire, for a time. But Putin refuses to concede anything on Ukraine.

He’s appeared to be considering the matter, notably when Trump rolled out a red carpet for the Russian leader at a summer summit in Alaska — an old front line of the Cold War. Trump left without an agreement from Putin to end the bloodshed. The Russian leader walked off with long-sought recognition on the world stage.

To the horror of Ukraine and the vexation of Trump, Putin has stood firm.

As the envoys flew home from Geneva last week without any agreement, the White House scrambled to explain. One U.S. official argued that the 28-page plan, which calls on Ukraine to cede the Donbas region and bar Ukraine from joining NATO, represents considerable concessions from Putin because he would be agreeing to give up on his claim, once and for all, that all of Ukraine should be part of Russia.

Putin, the official noted, has long grumbled that the West doesn’t respect Russia’s position in the global world order. The official added that the Trump White House in its approach is not affirming Putin’s position but trying to reflect the Russian perspective is given its due in the emerging peace plan.

It’s not for the administration to judge Putin’s positions, the official said, but it does have “to understand them if we want to get to a deal.”

Kellman, McNeil and Madhani write for the Associated Press. McNeil reported from Brussels and Madhani from Washington. AP writer Lee Keath in Cairo contributed to this report.